World War I Today

The Commonwealth of Australia

Australia Day pin commemorating Australia's role in the Dardanelles and Galipoli, 1915. Australia Day is January 26. Anzac Day is April 25, the date of the initial landing at Galipoli.

Australia Day

The Dardanelles

1915

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Australia, part of the British Commonwealth, joined Britain's war effort with support from both the Liberal and Labor Parties. Volunteers augmented its small standing army which was organized, with troops from New Zealand, into the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps or ANZACs.

Australia's Navy seized the territory of German New Guinea, and its battleship Sydney sank Emden on November 9, 1914 after it had seized or sunk Allied ships in the Indian Ocean.

Transported to Egypt where they defended the Suez Canal, ANZAC forces played a large role in the Gallipoli invasion, landing at Gaba Tepe - Anzac Cove. The ANZACs, clinging to cliffs beneath the Turkish defenders, suffered heavy losses. Keith Murdoch, an Australian journalist, played a large part in bringing the disaster to the attention of the British public and government.

After the evacuation of Gallipoli, the ANZACs were deployed to Salonica, Palestine, and the Western Front. The Australian Light Horse fought in Palestine, one of the few times in the war that mounted cavalry proved decisive. On the Western Front Australian forces fought under General Monash .

After the disaster of Gallipoli, Australia's war enthusiasm waned, and pro-war Prime Minister William Hughes tried to implement conscription. Two 1916 referenda rejected it.

The Australian Flying Corps flew in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and on the Western Front.

Australia's population was less than 5,000,000. 322,000 Australians served in the war, and 280,000 of them were casualties, an astonishing 87% rate. 60,000, Australian soldiers died, an 18% death rate, highest of all national armies.